Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ASTRONOMERS AT HARVARD have discovered what could be the most Earth-like planet ever found.
Kepler-438b is one of eight planets recently discovered in the Lyra constellation. It was discovered in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone of its parent star where the temperature is right for liquid water to flow.
The planet has a diameter just 12% bigger than earth and a 70% chance of being rocky. Keplar-438b circles an orange dwarf star that bathes it in 40% more heat than our home planet receives from the sun.
In comparison, Venus gets twice as much solar radiation as Earth. As a result, the team calculates it has a 70% likelihood of being in the habitable zone of its star.
Another of the eight newly-discovered planets, Kepler-442b, is about one-third larger than Earth, but still has a 60% chance of being rocky.
It gets about two-thirds as much light as Earth. Scientists give it a 97% chance of being in the habitable zone.
Kepler-438b, which is 470 light years away, completes an orbit around its star every 35 days, making a year on the planet pass 10 times faster than on Earth.
Habitable?
Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said most of the eight planets “have a good chance of being rocky, like Earth”.
His team’s findings were announced today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
David Kipping of the CfA said he and his colleagues ”don’t know for sure whether any of the planets in our sample are truly habitable … all we can say is that they’re promising candidates”.
Prior to this, the two most Earth-like planets known were Kepler-186f, which is 1.1 times the size of Earth and receives 32% as much light, and Kepler-62f, which is 1.4 times the size of Earth and gets 41% as much light.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Viagra now has some stiff competition.
95% of companies and 70%+ of jobs here are outside of the Multi-national sector.
Jobs and money that stay here are from SME’s.
Jobs that can leave at anytime and profit that flows back to America are Multi-nationals.
They are nice but they are too focused on rather than just being a nice slice of the pie.
Time to change the focus of the economy (long over due). Viagra was a once in a lifetime product. Time to get our so called native entrepreneurs to invest some of their OWN money in ventures in this country. A huge part of German success is family owned companies generating employment and profit in their own country. Entrepreneurs here, in America and in the UK, are on the plane to China as soon as they have a marketable idea. The path forward is clear. Entrepreneurs, be satisfied with a profit, rather than an obscene profit, and everyone can benefit. Are you up to the challenge?
There are some incredible Irish SME’s that are exporting all over the world and in many cases employing hundreds but we never hear of them.
It is all Dell this, Facebook that.
The likes of baby Bruton have no interest in the indigenous or SME sector, no sexy photo ops or opportunities for free publicity, and most importantly for our political class – no kickbacks either.
I can’t edit, but to add to the above, indigenous businesses are more likely to get the Tom Gilmartin treatment over the facebook/apple one…
Soft landing.
A bit hard to believe.
Production seems to be drooping a little.
Someone made a cock up somewhere
The government will still bow down to them
Full recovery imminent following stimulus measures introduced in Wednesday’s 2015 Budget.
What sort of stimulants are you on?
Should that not read “worn” off. Just a thought.
Viagra will be a hard act to follow.
Viagra are blue, not yellow.
The only thing I want to know is.. What would happen if a girl took viagra?
The reverse to what happens to a man ,the headache get,s worse
have your say